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Igbo Religion

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Igboland is an area of land in Southeast Nigeria that has its own unique culture which currently has a population of over five million (“Igbo”). Okonkwo is a highly honored patriarch of a Nigerian Igbo village whose story is told in the postcolonial fiction novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Exiled from his village for seven years, he loses all of the success he has worked for. As time passes by, his culture and religion struggle against the influence of newly arrived Christian missionaries as they attempt to change Igbo views and traditions. Throughout the story, the concept of chi is brought up, and it is regarded as a “personal god” in Igbo culture (Achebe, “Chi in Igbo Cosmology”) and is significant because it can guide a man to success or failure. …show more content…

Chi can be thought of as someone’s spirit or identity that lives in spiritland, and it is the third most important divinity in Igbo culture (“Deities of the Igbo Religion”). The Igbo believe that everything has a chi, and the chi found in nature were called the Alusi (Campbell). People with strong, benevolent chis would be successful in life, gaining wealth and happiness (Ohadike, “Igbo Culture and History”). People with chis that do not agree with their decisions tend to lose their success and suffer. If someone has a bad chi, Igbo people believe seeing a diviner or medicine man would make it stronger (Ohadike, “Igbo Culture and History”). In addition, people would pray and send sacrifices in order to make their chi more benevolent (Ohadike, “Igbo Culture and History”). Despite this fact, even if someone’s chi is very good, a man’s success is still ultimately dependent on how hard they work (Ohadike). Many Igbo people had an Ikenga in their household, which is a statue meant to remind them of their chi and how their spirits and gods affect daily life (“Deities of the Igbo

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In Igbo and Hispanic culture there is a huge emphasis on family and community. In Hispanic culture family is incredibly important for example, Día de los Muertos is a cultural holiday in which families honor their relatives who have passed. This is comparable in Things Fall Apart by how there are large families through polyamory which is exemplified by Okonkwo having multiple wives, “…and had just married his third wife” (p 8). His family and many others in the Igbo culture is like Hispanic culture because it is a very family-oriented culture. Another similarity is that both cultures have rituals that are crucial to the community.

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Success in the Igbo society is measured yams, wives, and titles. How many a man has of each shows how powerful he is. In the Igbo society, titles are important. The more titles one has, the more powerful they are.

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The are many different cultures around the world that have many different beliefs and religions. The Igbos are a very unique culture with many different beliefs. As a sociologist I have been studying the Igbo tribe for 3 weeks. Many wives, male dominance, chiefs and elders, robes, and female wrestling are all examples of the Igbos uniqueness and that is just the start. The Igbo rites of passage has evolved a lot since the British invaded them.

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In most fairy tales and novels a humble male role is used to dictate the normality of writing. In “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo, a strong male role is not only that, a lead character, but he is also cruel and prone to violent tendencies In the novel Okonkwo experiences harsh changes when the white men first came and at the beginning of colonialism. In “Things Fall Apart”, Achebe uses Okonkwo to display the negative change in everyday Igbo culture after colonialism. In this novel by Achebe, before colonialism was introduced, Okonkwo was a known masculine member of Umuofia.

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The novel “things fall apart” is about the fatal demise of Okonkwo and the igbo culture of Umuofia. Okonkwo is well known and respected leader in his community, who is successful in everything he does, such as wrestling and farming. He is quick with his hands and takes pride in his accomplishments. Okonkwo’s family relationship makes him a sympathetic character because of his support and an unsympathetic character because of his cruelty. In many ways Okonkwo showed that he had no sympathy for others , However at times he could be sympathetic.

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The Ibo religion is more related to nature compared to Christianity, which in the book is mainly portrayed as a more peaceful religion than the Ibo's, but both of the religions have a similar style of belief. Christianity is portrayed as more peaceful. The Europeans claim their religion is less violent than the Ibo religion. When Akunna is explaining the god Chukwu to Mr. Brown, he says, “You are afraid of Chukwu. In my religion Chukwa is a loving a loving father and need not to be feared by those who do his will” (Achebe,110).

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Unoka was considered a failure, because “he was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat” (5). While Okoye was not a failure because he had “a large barn full of yams and had three wives” (6). Igbo culture stretches the importance of providing for your family, as your wealth bases your social status. Although both were musicians, their social status were polar opposites. Achebe forces the reader to perceive Okonkwo as a success: “he was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife” (8).

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I had first heard about Achebe a few years back while doing a report on African American culture, but I never thought I would read any of his work myself. When I saw the book for myself I was surprised that a well-known novel like that could be so short in length. As I started reading the story of Okonkwo, an Igbo warrior in West Africa who is a hero amongst his village, I was shocked at the differences between pre-colonial Africa and the world today. Okonkwo’s people are farmers, their way of life is greatly influenced by their past ancestors and is a democratic-like society.

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The tripartite novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, published in 1958 focuses on the changes taking place in Nigeria, as a result of colonization during the 20th century. Chinua Achebe’s pragmatics when writing the novel focused on changing the perspective of Western readers with regard to African society. He mainly wanted to falsify the assertions in books such as “Heart of Darkness” which he claimed gave people of African descent a dull personality. Social status is one of the novels’ main themes. Chinua Achebe successfully incorporates the importance of social status, giving readers the impression that for the Ibo society, social structure consists mainly of a hierarchy of both skill and strength.

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One of the more unusual cultural aspects that is discussed in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is the existence of an ogbanje. According to a study of Igbo culture conducted by researcher Bertram I. N. Osuagwu, an ogbanje is “an evil spirt causing people to die suddenly” (Osuagwu 36). Some believe that the ogbanje are deities that enter the world and become human beings, but because of a promise that they made to the spirit world, they die early in their lives (Osuagwu 36). In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s wife Ekwefi believes that she has been cursed by an ogbanje because of the abnormally high mortality rate of her children. Early in the novel, Achebe describes the hardship that Ekwefi has endured, stating “Ekwefi had suffered a good

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Many aspects of their lives have men as the prominent heads of their households, but women also have some importance in many of the concepts. In the novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe presents the idea of how Igbo culture and religion define the roles for each gender and examines how unequal roles in society can lead to conflicts between each gender in order to illustrate how they can lead to permanently damaged relationships. The main driving forces behind gender role beliefs in Things Fall Apart are a result of the ideologies set by the Ibo people. Their culture dictated men as stronger people who did more work, while women were dictated as individuals who were weak and inferior because they did household activities.

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Not only did Okonkwo face the new idea of Christianity, but so did Chinua Achebe. During Achebe’s interview with The Paris Review, Achebe says “My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria” (Brooks). He saw the effects of the Christian religion moving through his village, something that Okonkwo couldn’t bear to live through. Religion is a major topic in the novel. Chinua Achebe uses religion to show the reader the God in the Igbo culture, their belief in reincarnation, and the colonization of Christianity.

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